Origins of the Triathlon
Thanks to Leisure Lakes Bikes for writing this article
If you are like me then you may have wrongly assumed that Triathlons have been around for ages. I always had this sepia coloured vision of moustachioed men riding around on Penny Farthing bicycles and diving into lakes wearing horizontally lined, full body swimming costumes all the while and shouting “tip top” and “spiffing good run”. As it happens that couldn’t be further from the truth. The first modern triathlon took place on September 25th 1974 at Mission Bay, California and was the brain child of two amateur runners: Jack Johnstone and Don Shanahan who claim they came to the idea without any outside influence.
As the story goes, in 1971 Jack Johnstone, 35, had begun feeling depressed about his decreasing health and increasing waist line and combated that by becoming one of many American’s sucked into the jogging craze that was sweeping the country. Inevitably he found himself competing in one of the many road races that were taking place and performed miserably until he discovered the biathlon.
Rather than wait for the events to come to him, Jack took it upon himself and planned a race with both running and swimming. He mentioned his plans to a local athlete who was in charge of one of the running clubs and he said he would keep it in his calendar if Jack did the rest. As an afterthought he suggested that Jack called Don Shanahan, another athlete who also had a strange event in mind to see if they could do something together.
Shanahan proposed that they include a cycling leg in the race and the triathlon was born. When race day came around, 46 athletes turned up with their road bikes and began the competition. The race consisted of a 6 mile run, a 5 mile cycle and a 500 yard swim and many spectators set up their vango tents to settle in and watch the finish. Bill Phillips, who can be seen on the right in the photo, came in first with a time of 55:44 and the race’s founders Jack Johnstone came in Sixth with a time of 62:18. Don Shanahan was unable to compete due to an injury.
Jack Johnstone and Bill Phillips (1976)
Four years later, athletes in Hawaii began arguing which discipline had the fittest athletes and US Navy Commander John Collins pointed out that Eddy Merckx, a Belgian cyclist had just been recorded as having the highest recorded rate of oxygen uptake and that cyclists might be the fittest.
Collins had also already taken part in the Mission Bay Triathlon and he and other athletes decided to combine three of the standalone events that already took place in Hawaii: The Waikiki Roughwater swim (2.4miles), the Around-Oahu Bike Race (115 miles) and the Honolulu Marathon (26 miles).
Of the 15 athletes that participated in the first Ironman only 12 finished. Every participant had their own dedicated support crew who accompanied each athlete around the course and offered encouragement, food and water. The runner up of the first Ironman was US Navy Seal John Dunbar who interestingly ran out of water during the marathon leg of the race and had to resort to the only other sustenance that the team had on hand. Beer.
In first position, the very first ironman, was Gordon Haller a US Navy Communications Specialist who completed the course in 11:46, but today many triathletes consider it an achievement just to finish the course.
The original Ironman Gordon Haller
There are those however that believe the triathlon does go back a little further than the inaugural event in 1974, citing the little known event called Les Trois Sports that occurred in 1920s France. This race had cycle, swim and running events and is still going to this day. Thankfully this triathlon goes some way towards reaffirming my dream of sepia coloured triathletes. But what is your earliest triathlon and is the ironman as tough as it sounds? We’d love to hear you views below.
